Policymakers in 15 developing countries in Latin America, South, East and Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will soon have access to evidence-based policy options for improving budget allocations in health, education and water. The Global Development Network, in partnership with Results for Development is implementing an exciting five-year research project titled ‘Strengthening Institutions to Improve Public Expenditure Accountability.’ The fundamental goal of this project is to improve development outcomes by increasing the effectiveness with which governments allocate and use their resources.

Over the past two decades, the global emphasis on development planning has increasingly focused on improving the social sector outcomes in developing countries across the world. There are three chief reasons for this. Firstly, in spite of significant progress in poverty alleviation, there continues to be inequality in both opportunity and access to social sector services, therefore requiring a fresh look at development policies. Secondly, since resources are scarce there is a need to prioritize them and finally, there is a need to identify cost-effective service delivery models within the socio-economic and political framework of the developing countries.

World leaders are now racing against time to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target by 2015. The MDG are a set of targets officially established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000. Those targets include halving extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development.

Economic status of one individual in a society is not only a product of the effort or talent of that particular individual alone. Philosopher Professor John Roemer of Yale University in his theory of distributive justice emphasizes that inequality in circumstances can explain to a large extent the poverty and inequality situation in many societies. Such circumstances include access to health and education services.

Two CEDS researchers, Mr. Adiatma Siregar and Mr. Ahmad Komarulzaman, attended the Technical Training Workshop on Policy Simulations held by the Global Development Network in GDN headquarter, New Delhi, India from 30 July - 1 August 2012.